What Happened To Erik Haula?

There's been a lot of talk about everyone's favorite speedster lately, considering the pace at which the Blackhawks play hockey. After a rough start to the season full of questionable fitness levels, Haula settled in to a fourth-line role similar to what he had played last post-season. Erik Haula was on a lot of people's lists to have a breakout season.

By all accounts, last season was truly remarkable in a lot of ways; particularly the playoffs. This season has, by most accounts, been a bust. So, the question, Wilderness, is whether or not last season was as stellar as we remember, and if this season has been as awful as it seems.

Off the bat, the first issue is that last season is caught up in memories of the playoffs. By most accounts, Haula was stellar there. In order to increase our sample size for last season, I'm going to include the playoffs.

Usage

Firstly, let's look at Haula's usage last season, last playoffs, and now in the regular season. On all of these, the x-axis is zone starts, the y-axis is the quality of competition (relative to the rest of the Wild). The color of the bubble indicates their Corsi %Rel, and the size of the bubble is how extreme their CF%Rel is (blue is good, red is bad).

Last Season

Courtesy of Some Kind of Ninja

Last Playoffs

Courtesy of Some Kind of Ninja

This Season

Courtesy of Some Kind of Ninja

As we can see, last season (in the regular season) Haula played relatively moderate zone-starts, but against some of the easiest competition of any Wild player. That said, he also had a slightly positive CF%Rel. So, he had a good impact on possession with very middling zone starts, but easy competition.

In the playoffs, he continued to drive possession, despite having more defensive zone starts and against some of the most difficult competition of all the Wild. As our memories tell us, Haula played quite well, and not against easy opponents (relative to his teammates).

This season, Haula started in the defensive zone more than every player except Brodziak; he was buried, more or less. He was extremely middling in terms of quality of competition. His relative Corsi, however, is now negative. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, even middling competition in the NHL are better, possession-wise, than the Colorado Avalanche (quality of competition in these is determined by Corsi numbers).

Secondly, the Minnesota Wild are a better possession team this year than they were last year. Even if Haula remained the same in terms of controlling play, the bar has moved up, and what once was better than average is now worse than average.

Production

Season	Games Played	G	A	P	P/60	Sh%	On-Ice Sh%	On-Ice Sv%	PDO	CF%	CF% Rel	Zone Start% Rel	TOI/Gm	TOI
2014-15	72	6	6	12	1	7.4	6.2	90.4	96.6	49.3	-2.3	-11	9.9	709.6
2013-14	59	9	11	20	2.1	11.4	10.1	94.5	104.6	50.8	2.3	-5.4	9.5	560.6

Stats at 5v5, Score-Adjusted from War on Ice

So, first off, we can see that Haula produced about twice as much last season as he did this season (in less time, too!) The reason for this should be clear: Haula's shooting percentage was significantly higher than it was this year. This is true of his line mates as well; the Wild's shooting percentage was also significantly higher last year than this year. Furthermore, the Wild simply couldn't stop pucks while Haula was playing this year, and that's ALL THEY DID with him on the ice last year.

The combination of worse shooting luck and worse goaltending led to a collapse of Haula's PDO- the metric gained by adding shooting and save percentages. Essentially, PDO measures luck; below 100, you're unlucky; above 100, you're lucky. Paula was very lucky last season, and not lucky at all this season.

Interestingly, Haula's CF% was only slightly worse this year than last. The increase in the Wild's ability to possess the puck likely did the rest to get Haula's CF%Rel down to -2.3. It's worth noting that a -2.3 CF%Rel is far from terrible; it's not good, but nor is it bad.

Ultimately, Haula appears to be basically the same player he was last season. The differences lie in two major places: his luck and the goalies. Haula had some poor luck in his shooting, and his goalies didn't... well... play goalie.

There is, of course, the unanswered question regarding Haula's early-season fitness. If that was an issue, it didn't last long, as he played pretty much identically to last year, but with worse zone starts and against harder competition.

Perhaps next year will be the year Haula breaks out. Till then, we merely have to wait and see.

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As always, a big thanks goes out to Some Kind of Ninja and War on Ice for the stats in this article.